BATON ROUGE – Gov. Bobby Jindal, once a supporter of Common Core State Standards but lately stepping away from the issue, sidestepped giving any direct answers Thursday when asked by reporters whether he supports bills to take Louisiana out of the multistate agreement.

Jindal invited print reporters to his state Capitol office to talk about issues and answer questions.

But when asked about Common Core, he said he would address different factions of what he sees as problems with the tougher standards as they come up. His administration supported what he called the “first issue, student privacy.”

But when asked about an overall opinion of Common Core, he said, “We’ve had good conversations with the authors. I don’t think it’s progressed to the point where we can tell you, ‘Hey look,’ they’re willing to make changes or not willing to make changes that would put these bills in a posture we can support them or oppose them.”

“They haven’t made those decisions yet, so we haven’t. We’re having good constructive conservations with them, but it’s early.”

Bills dealing with Common Core this session range from a total ban on using the standards to “tweaking” them to make them more acceptable. Some call for developing “Louisiana standards” that have more rigor than is now required.

“In general, I think we should have strong standards in this state,” he said.

When asked what he would support, Jindal answered, “When it comes to specific bills, when they get to the issue of standards, we’ll sit down with the authors and provide our thoughts about it. But in general when it comes to standards, we don’t want to weaken the standards.”

For Council for a Better Louisiana President Barry Erwin, a strong supporter of Common Core, the governor’s answers are confusing.

Erwin picked apart Jindal’s statement, “We support rigor and high academic standards that help ensure Louisiana students are able to compete with every state and every country in the world. What we do not support is federal, one-size-fits-all testing that potentially breaches student privacy. We have concerns with Common Core and PARCC (the testing component) and that’s why we asked the state education board and legislators to address these issues.”

Erwin said the statement “sent waves of disappointment to many who support higher standards as it looked like the governor was finally caving in to the groups who want to end Common Core in Louisiana. But does it? When you look closely, it’s really hard to tell just what, if anything, it actually means.”

Erwin said the governor says he has “concerns.” “It would be helpful to know specifically what those concerns are.”

Hesaid Common Core has the high standards the governor wants and PARRC does not breach student privacy any more that the other tests the state has administered for years.

The governor said he wants tougher standards but wouldn’t commit to whether the standards should be statewide or developed by the different school boards in the state, as is proposed in legislation.

He said he doesn’t like “one-size-fits-all” testing, as is proposed using Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) exams.

“Where we do draw a red line is we absolutely oppose to anything that would undo reforms,” Jindal said. “It would be a mistake to go backwards.”

He said “folks are rightfully concerned about federal government overreach” into schools.

House and Senate committees Wednesday delayed until March 26 any decisions on bills that deal with student privacy. They’re trying to avoid problems that arise if the bills are too strict or too loose.